In honor of my friends now in grip of a deep northern winter

I always liked the way I had described my experience driving in a winter storm in northern North Dakota in The Wolf at Twilight. For those who know, and for those of you who are curious, here is the chapter entitled A Glow in the Distance. I hope it will encourage some of you who have not yet read the book to pick it up. Winter is a central element, but its real purpose is to reveal the reality of the Indian boarding school experience that is so little known to most of America.

Here’s the chapter:

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A GLOW IN THE DISTANCE

Where are you?” Louise said. There was something close to panic in her voice. I put my mouth closer to the receiver to drown out the sound of the wind.

“I’m outside a little reservation store up by the border,” I said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t call. There’s no cell service here.”

“Have you been listening to the radio? There’s a huge storm blowing in from Canada. They’ve shut down everything west of Winnipeg.”

I didn’t need a radio to tell me something big was coming. The calm on the way out from Mary’s house had been ominous, the glow too bright and unnatural. It was as if the sky had been gathering a quiet power in preparation for something dark and threatening. In the twenty miles between Mary’s and the trading post, the wind had picked up again. Small, hard flakes of snow were blowing almost on a horizontal, and the air was strangely unsettled.

“Look,” I said. “I’m okay. I think I’m going to push a little farther to the west. I met an old woman who knew Yellow Bird and went to the same boarding school. She mentioned a sanitarium out by Turtle Mountain.”

“Turtle Mountain? That’s in the middle of North Dakota. You’re not going to try to make it out there?”

“What am I supposed to do? I can’t make it home. There’s no town anywhere around here. Turtle Mountain’s about the same distance as heading back. I might as well give it a try.”

“But at least heading this direction you’ve got the trees. You drive west, you’re going into the prairies.”

I knew she was right. Half an inch of snow with a strong wind on the prairies can be more dangerous than a foot of snow in the forests. At least trees serve as markers. You find yourself driving through a tunnel of white. On the prairies the road simply disappears and leaves you staring at a shapeless landscape of undifferentiated whiteness. A false turn or a slip, and you can find yourself stuck in a ditch with no traction, no phone service, and no way to get out. You can’t walk for help, and you can’t stay in your car. More experienced travelers than I had lost their lives in such circumstances.

“Look. I’ll make it to the nearest town, find a place for the night, and stay put until the plows get out in the morning. It’s the best I can do.”

“Sometimes I wish you’d never gotten involved in this,” she said.

“So do I,” I said, as the snow swirled around me. “But it’s a little late for that now.”

“Just call when you find a place to stay. I’ll keep the phone by the bed.”

I hung up and walked back to the car. The windshield and hood were already covered with snow. The road beyond the parking lot was almost invisible in the growing storm.

I pulled a map from the glove box and plotted the distance to the next town. It was about forty miles directly west.

I turned onto the roadway and headed into the storm. The thick pine forest offered protection from the wind, but before long the road had drifted over, and I was cutting tracks through fresh snow. The trees loomed ghostly on either side of me.

Several times I thought of turning around, but when I checked the rearview mirror, I saw that my tracks had filled in behind me. Even if I made it back to the trading post, there would be no place to stay. I would end up trying to sleep in my car, and I had only my jacket to keep me warm in temperatures that were rapidly dropping below zero.

With no better options, I continued on the road toward the little North Dakota town.

Gradually, the forests thinned, then gave way completely to shapeless, treeless prairies. It was as I had feared — the relentless winds were blowing the snow on a horizontal, sending skeins across the roadway and obscuring the pavement with finger drifts. Patches of asphalt were still visible, so I could navigate my way from dark spot to dark spot. But I knew I didn’t have much time before the road completely disappeared.

More than once I thought of stopping at a farmhouse to ask for a place to stay. But the few scattered farmsteads were set far back from the road, and their long driveways were already hidden beneath a featureless blanket of snow. With the wind chill dropping and the snow increasing, parking the car and attempting to walk to one of them could produce disastrous results. There was nothing to do but continue westward until I could find safe harbor in the small town I had seen on the map.

I inched my way forward, decreasing my speed as conditions deteriorated. Soon I was going no more than ten miles an hour. I kept on this way for about an hour until a faint glow appeared on the horizon. I wanted to speed up, but I knew that without proper winter survival clothing — an oversight I was regretting more and more by the minute — skidding off the road a mile from the town could have the same result as skidding off the road on the uninhabited prairie. I had to remain patient.

By the time I reached the outskirts everything was buried in snow. The town was only one street long, and it appeared to be completely shut down. There were a few lonely tire tracks cutting through the fresh layer of white. But other than that, there was only the ghostly haloed glow of the few streetlights casting their weak illumination down on the empty main street.

There were no hotels or motels other than one darkened roadside inn on the edge of the highway leading out of town. I pushed the nose of the Toyota through the fresh snow and banged on the door until a disheveled old man who smelled of alcohol opened it a crack and peered out at me.

“Everything’s taken,” he said. “Construction crew.” He nodded toward the parking lot. There were about ten pickup trucks sitting in front of the units, all half buried in snow.

“I’ll sleep on a couch. Anything,” I said.

“Sorry. There’s just no room. There’s a place about twelve miles up. You should be able to make it. But you’d better get going. This feels like a big one.”

He shut the door and turned off the porch light.

I was close to panic. Once again, I thought of pulling onto a side street and sleeping in the car. But the wind was so raw and the air so cold that I doubted I could survive. I considered going to the police station to see if I could sleep in the jail, but then I realized that this tiny prairie outpost had no police station or any other public services, for that matter.

Finally, against my better judgment, I decided to make a run for it. I tried to tell myself that it was only twelve miles, but in the back of my mind were the stories of the old North Dakota farmers who strung lines between their houses and their barns so they could make it between the two during snowstorms without getting lost. Twelve miles was a lot farther than the distance from a barn to a house.

Within minutes of leaving the town I regretted my decision. But I dared not try to turn around on the snow-covered, featureless highway. If I slid off the shoulder, I would be trapped in the ditch until morning.

Visibility was approaching zero. My headlights did little more than illuminate the raging snowstorm a few feet in front of me. More than once I had to step out into the ripping wind to brush snow off the road to find the yellow line.

It took me almost three hours to make the twelve miles. I don’t think I would have made it had a semi not come roaring by, kicking up a cyclone of snow and disappearing quickly into the night. How he was navigating I don’t know, but I didn’t care. I followed the red glow of his taillights until they disappeared into the mist, then set myself in his tracks and limped my way forward.

By the time I reached the town it was well past midnight. I was so weak with panic that I could barely hold the steering wheel.

The town was little bigger than the last one — a single main street with a few side streets. It could not have had a population of more than a several hundred.

The silence of the great storm had overtaken everything. The roofs of the buildings were buried in huge drifts. The main street was dark except for a few streetlights casting feeble circles of light through the swirling snows. The only sound was the howling of the wind.

I drove through the town, searching desperately for any sign of life.

I did not see a motel anywhere. Finally, on the outskirts where the highway resumed, I caught sight of a small glow behind a darkened service station and café. A few semis had pulled over there and sat rumbling in the darkness with their trailer lights on. Across the lot was a small cement building with a red and white painted sign that read “Motel and Laundromat.” The lights were off, but I could see several cars in front of the units.

Almost giddy with relief, I pulled in, tightened my jacket around my neck, and ran to the door.

A light came on inside, then a man with a long gray ponytail peeked out from behind a curtain. I mouthed, “I need a room.” Slowly, he opened the door against the pummeling wind. “Thirty bucks. No credit cards,” he said.

I gratefully traded three tens for a key and fought my way through the snow to my unit. I could barely stand up against the gale. After I had made several futile attempts to fit the key into the frozen lock, the door creaked open. I stepped inside, turned on the space heater, and collapsed on the bed. My hands were so numb I could barely pick up the phone. No sound came from the receiver. The storm must have blown down the phone lines. I tried my cell phone, but there was no service. I knew that Louise would be frantic, but there was nothing I could do.

I pulled off my shoes, crawled under the covers, and fell into a deep sleep, wondering how the Native people had ever managed to survive on a land like this.

11 thoughts on In honor of my friends now in grip of a deep northern winter

I’ve read this book and the other two that tell Dan’s story multiple times, and I never tire of them. In fact, reading your post this morning makes me want to start the books again. Your writing is not only entertaining (poor choice of a word for something so well done), but it is also teaching. Really wonderful writing with great depth! I feel the cold and the panic, and then the total exhaustion – and I live in the South where even the mention of snow sends folks scurrying to the grocery store to stock up. I don’t recall how I happened upon your books, but am so glad I did. It’s a story that needs to be told, and you have told it with great heart!

Thank you, Terry. I often fear that the harshness of a northern clime cannot be translated to people living in lands where such great forces of winter and cold seem alien. I remember reading from A Haunting Reverence (now, Native Echoes) at the Miami Book Fair to people in Hawaiian shirts and flip flops. “What the hell am I doing?” I thought. “I should be wasting away in Margaritaville.” And to this day I don’t know whether they were able to take in the words emotionally or only intellectually. Thanks you for reminding me that words can cross barriers that sometimes seem insurmountable. You have made my day.

Reading your well expressed words made me feel like I was having the experience. I felt the controlled panic as the snow closed in and the will to survive at full throttle; reaching deeply for patience, hope, faith, and trust in The Creator to get me to a place of warmth and rest inside away from the blizzard; and concern for a loved one awaiting a call to let them know all is well when there is no service…enduring such a challenge is no small feat and The People who live in North Dakota, South Dakota…on the plains…face this every winter!

I have read and reread most of your books. I am currently reading “Voices in the Stones” for the third time. I find this book very important in my realizing what an inspirational culture the native Americans had developed. “Voices” has made such an inspiration for me that I just purchased 5 copies to use as gifts for members of my Buddhist sangha. Thanks for bringing Native American to life for me.

OH that was SO good ! I am reminded what a great writer you are every time I pick up something of yours…. I know my blood pressure was up just reading this again ! I’ve read your trilogy and love everything I’ve read by you… You are the most descriptive writer — I felt it all… the panic, the anxiety…the cold.. the wind 🙂
I just sent my son a copy of LETTERS TO MY SON….since I am now a grandma to a 2 year old.. I hope he enjoys your writing as much as I do… Thanks for all the journeys you’ve taken us along on…. NEITHER WOLF NOR DOG…. Number 1 always !!

I just want to thank you, Kent, for writing the trilogy of books about Dan and his friends. (I also read your Chief Joseph book.) I wish all Americans would read these books.I hope that Zi continues to hear the voices of her ancestors and of the Creator and that she is doing OK while navigating between worlds.

I am sorry that I only discovered your writings a couple months ago. You likely have discussed this elsewhere on your blog, but do you talk about the death of Dan anywhere in your books? I know it happened in 2002 and I am hoping that his friends and family let you know so that you could pay your respects. Thank you for any response.

Thank you, Kent. I know you don’t reveal who the “real” people are in your books, though they are real people. I just didn’t know if you had done another “Dan” story which took us up to the very end of his life. He certainly had a lot to say about the Europeans forever changing this continent and the lives of the people who were living here at that time. I thank him for that and I thank you for writing his words.

Dear Kent: Thank you for the gift of “Neither Wolf, Nor Dog.” My 82 year old Mom, still shoveling snow in NW Montana, and I have read this wonderful book a few times. We are truly moved by your words and observations. I’ve visited Pine Ridge many years ago and spoke with a Native grandmother and her grandchild, outside the Indian School. I had visited the “Gift Shop” and Art Gallery. The prices were high, I thought. Three white men were speaking to one another about the art. They paid no attention to us. I asked the Grandmother about how much the Tribal members were paid for their work. She said the women would sew beaded moccasins. The women were given three dollars and seven-five cents a pair. The school was selling them for $20.00. These were for the little kids’.She also said the paintings by tribal members was sold the same way. Some of these were of gallery quality. Anyway, it left a very poor opinion of the school and their so-called efforts to educate the tribe.
Mom said the Blackfeet Reservation is in the same conditions you described in the above excerpt. No one could reach them at all for at least three days. The wind blew the snow with fierce blizzard conditions. FEET of snow. That reservations was very poor the last time I was through. Housing worse than Pine Ridge. A few years back, no one could come to consensus on how best to dig for a water system. At the gas station, I saw a bitch dog, with heavy breasts, looking for food. A friend of mine, now deceased was one of the attorneys who worked on the lawsuit against the Department of the Interior for mis management of funds. I am sorry Eloise Cobell did not live long enough to see the fruits of her commitment. But I still wonder what the tribal councils are doing with the monies. My mother and I have property on the Flathead Reservation in Montana. We are hearing the Tribal Council kept most of the funds for tribal use. Just as one sees at Turtle Mountain, I suspect mismanagement of funds. Our reservation has a lot of poverty and tribal housing with no doors, no heat. But things may be looking up. My daughter-in-law is working for them as an FNP and she said the tribe is hiring more healthcare providers to fill the gap in enough medical care workers. We are hoping for changes in the drug abuse and alcoholism rates of our youth. Anyway, kind sir, thank you. You are in my birth state and Bemidji is one town I became interested in years ago. Do they still call it “Ber-mid-gi?”

Nice note, Debbie. Thanks. Informative, too. I no longer live in Bemidji. My wife and I moved to Portland after our children were all grown and she retired. Love the Pacific Northwest but miss the hard north of Minnesota above highway 2. Always am happy to go back.